Agriculture and FoodDevelopmentEconomicsEducationEmploymentEnergyEnvironmentFinance and InvestmentGovernanceIndustry and ServicesNuclear EnergyScience and TechnologySocial Issues/Migration/HealthTaxationTradeTransportUrban, Rural and Regional Development

OECD Competition Assessment Reviews: Greece

The work undertaken by the Greek authorities in recent years to reinforce competition law and the Hellenic Competition Commission, to simplify business administration and to liberalise professional services have demonstrated the political willingness to address the problem of existing regulatory barriers to competition that have contributed to holding back the economic recovery.

The OECD Competition Assessment Project, through the scrutiny of legislation in four sectors of the Greek economy, food processing, retail trade, building materials and tourism, has identified 336 areas where particular reform can be undertaken, from a total of 539 provisions that were selected using the OECD Competition Assessment Toolkit.

If our recommendations are implemented, benefits to consumers in Greece and to the Greek economy should arise in all four sectors. Throughout this report, we seek to identify the sources of those benefits and where possible provide quantitative estimates. Estimates are made on the basis of experiences of deregulation in other countries in some instances, or by relating conservative estimates of efficiency gains to the overall size of the business activity affected.

Assessment and recommendations

This assessment identifies distortions to competition in Greek legislation and proposes recommendations for the removal of regulatory barriers to competition in four key areas of the Greek economy: food processing, retail trade, building materials and tourism, with additional investigation of cross-cutting legislation that concerns these four areas. The 555 regulatory restrictions that were identified were analysed, and the report makes 329 specific recommendations, with an additional 40 provisions that are an administrative burden to businesses. Among the benefits from increased competition will be lower prices and greater choice and variety for consumers as a result of entry of new, more efficient firms or from new forms of production in existing firms. This report identifies the sources of those benefits and, where possible, provides quantitative estimates. If the particular restrictions that have been identified during the project are lifted, the OECD has calculated a positive effect for the Greek economy of around EUR 5.2 billion.